Johnny Depp’s Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness

La Belle Epoque ended with WWI, but the attitudes of Paris’s proper society have not changed. That meant Amedeo Modigliani had three strikes against him. He was a Bohemian Jew from Italy. He was also a genius, but he couldn’t sell a painting to a “real” collector. His unruly and self-destructive tendencies did not help either, but they obviously endeared the artist to Johnny Depp, whose second directorial effort, Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness, which opened in New York with strangely little fanfare.

Imagine having Modigliani sketch your portrait like an amusement park caricaturist. At the time, the customers of the swanky restaurant do not appreciate their good fortune. That is especially true of the maître d,’ who inspires Modigliani’s quick exit through a stained-glass window.

With the police seeking “Modi,” his gallerist/patron Leopold Zborowski encourages him to lay low until he can present his work to Maurice Gangnat, an important collector who could make or break Modigliani’s reputation. However, Modi cannot stop himself from carousing and making scenes with his lowlife painter friends, Maurice Utrillo and Chaim Soutine. Frankly, Modi only relaxes when in the company of his hot-and-cold lover, journalist Beatrice Hastings.

Even Modi recognizes his fatalism can be self-defeating. Unfortunately his failing health often leads to fits of depression. He largely masks his worsening condition, but visions of plague doctors constantly reminds him of his own mortality.

Don’t call Johnny Depp canceled. He is alive and well and working in Europe. He and Woody Allen really ought to get together. Regardless, he seems perfectly happy appearing in idiosyncratic festival bait. Nevertheless, the chance to helm a period production is an opportunity that rarely comes around for any actor, so he made the most of it.

Modi is visually bold and sometimes even experimental. In addition to his dramatic camera angles and whirling pans, Depp often renders scenes in the style of vintage black-and-white silent cinema, even utilizing title cards for dialogue. He also employs an anachronistic soundtrack, including avant-garde jazz and Tom Waits.

Depp also benefits from a quality cast, especially including Ricardo Scamarcio, who broods like a house on fire as Modi. Ironically, Scamarcio bears a resemblance to both the real-life Modigliani and Depp himself (who never appears in an acting role), so viewers might start to think of all three interchangeably. Of course, Al Pacino does his thing, chewing the scenery as Gangnat, while Stephen Graham provides some semblance of a stable human perspective as Zborowski.

Waiting for the Barbarians

In this far desert country, the temperature is hot, the air is dry, and the allegories run heavy. This is the distant frontier of an unnamed European empire. The uniforms look French, but the geography resembles Eurasia. During his tenire, the unassuming Magistrate has largely maintained a climate of laissez-faire tolerance with the locals. Of course, when an inquisitor from the capitol comes looking for trouble, he will inevitably find it in Ciro Guerra’s Waiting for the Barbarians, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

We know by now nothing good comes from a visit by the Inspector General. That would be Colonel Joll, who is conducting a fact-finding mission along the frontier. Much to the Magistrate’s surprise, he is bizarrely interested in two rather pathetic sheep thieves he is holding in custody. After a ferocious interrogation session, Joll and his troops tear off after the suspects the broken men named.

The world-weary Magistrate fully understands the Colonel’s campaign is a self-fulfilling prophecy (as does the audience), but Joll is a power unto himself. Despite the precariousness of his situation, the old bureaucrat will do his best to make things right for at least one of Joll’s victims, a nomadic woman, who stirs feelings of both pity and longing within him.

The very title of Barbarians conspicuously evokes a Pogo-esque response, along the lines of: “but we were the barbarians.” There is absolutely no subtlety here whatsoever. Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee adapted his own novel, but the dreaminess of the book becomes the broad strokes and bombast of propaganda theater.

Nevertheless, Mark Rylance (the king of nebbish angst) does his best to portray the Magistrate with tragic sensitivity. He also develops an intriguingly complicated relationship with the Woman, played by Mongolian thesp Gana Bayarsaikhan, but the narrative surrounding it is awkward and clunky.

Frankly, Johnny Depp seems rather bored going through the motions of Joll’s villainy. On the other hand, Robert Pattinson mostly engages as bursts of inexplicable anger as Officer Mandel, like he knew his part would be consigned to the film’s margins (while still looming large over the one-sheet).

London Fields Finally Opens

After the success of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, the unreliable narrator became all the rage in popular fiction, but Martin Amis had already been there and done that. Admittedly, his untrustworthy story-teller was a bloke rather than a “girl,” but the principal is the same. In this case, he also happened to be a failed novelist—an Amisian trope if ever there was one (see The Information). Long mired in legal and financial wrangling, Amis’s celebrated deceptive narrator finally gets a theatrical release, but he is not fooling anyone in Matthew Cullen’s London Fields (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Thus far, Samson Young’s literary career has been a miserable failure, but he picked the perfect time to visit London. Apocalyptic riots break out nightly across the city, but the lack of tourism meant the terminally ill writer could swing a flat exchange with pompous bestselling novelist Mark Asprey, swapping his crummy Hell’s Kitchen apartment for the tony London pad. As a further fringe benefit, Young discovers Asprey also has quite a beautiful neighbor in Nicola Six, who might just provide the inspiration for the page-turner he never had in him.

Young quickly learns Six has foretold the exact time of her death, which is fast approaching. However, she only knows she will be murdered—not by whom. For impishly perverse reasons, Six seems determined to help fate along, by stoking the lust and jealousy of the two leading suspects: flamboyant small-time hoodlum Keith Talent and petulantly entitled gentry-lad Guy Clinch. Young is convinced he can just record this real-life “novel” unfolding around him to finally score his bestseller.

The biggest problem with Roberta Hanley’s adapted screenplay is that we can immediately guess the big twist as soon as the film establishes all the main characters. Maybe it is all Gillian Flynn’s fault, but even if the troubled film had been released before Fincher’s Gone Girl, Cullen and Hanley simply do not incorporate enough misdirection to carry off the surprise. That is especially problematic, since they have stripped away most of the idiosyncrasy of Amis’s novel, opting to focus on the D.O.A.-ish noir plot-strand.

To give you an idea how long Fields has been held up, way back when it went into production, it was still considered a good idea to have Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in the same film. Depp is strangely uncredited, but that is probably for the best, considering his recent career setbacks. Frankly, he and Jim Sturgess are cringe-inducingly embarrassing as Talent and Chick Purchase, his pimped-out loan shark and professional darts nemesis. Admittedly, Heard is stuck with an underwritten character in Six, but at least she makes a credibly smoldering femme fatale. Theo James fares somewhat better than Sturgess as the shallow and easily manipulated Clinch, even though he is rather bland and forgettable.

In contrast, Billy Bob Thornton is unusually restrained as Young, but he still manages to chew a good bit of scenery. Frankly, Jason Isaacs largely steals the show, which is kind of sad, because most of his work as Asprey comes via voice messages to Young, sort of like the opening answering machine gag that always launched the Rockford Files credits.

To give credit where it is due, cinematographer Guillermo Navarro makes all look fabulously noir and stylish. The electronic score credited to Toydrum, Benson Taylor, and Adam Barber is also percussively propulsive, sounding quite appealingly influenced by Birdman and earlier crime jazz. Unfortunately, any viewer with any pop culture savvy will be way ahead of this film, which gives them plenty of time to lose patience with the shtickiness of Depp and Sturgess. It is not nearly as hideous as it is cracked up to be, but London Fields still isn’t recommended when it opens today (10/26) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Black Mass: Depp as Bulger

The one man James “Whitey” Bulger truly regrets not killing is radio host Howie Carr. Of course, it was not for a lack of trying. Yet, there is no mention of Carr in Hollywood’s first take on the Bulger case. In many ways, it is a kitchen sink movie, but its inclusions and exclusions are each significant. However, there is no denying the gangster’s fierceness in Scott Cooper’s Black Mass (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

Bulger hated to be called Whitey, preferring to be called Jimmy by friends and low life associates. Whitey was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, his brother William was the Democrat president of the Massachusetts State Senate, and John Connolly was the hotshot FBI agent returning to the South Boston neighborhood of his youth. Whitey had once interceded when a group of bullies were battering Connolly and he had idolized the unstable Bulger ever since. It seems that he still does.

According to Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth’s adaptation of Dick Lahr & Gerard O’Neill’s book, Connolly hatched the idea of an FBI alliance with Bulger out of misplaced hero-worship. Whether that is psychologically accurate or not, the upshot remains the same. Connolly used FBI resources to protect Bulger and facilitate his brutal expansion in exchange for information on the Italian mafia. Just how much information Bulger provided is the subject of great contention, but Black Mass portrays his reluctant scoop as the turning point in the mafia investigation.

Essentially, Black Mass jogs through the sad criminal epic, hitting the major bases and giving viewers of grab bag smattering of perspectives on Whitey. There is the Southie folk hero who helps old Mrs. Cody with her groceries. There is the psychopathic Whitey, who would take you out and shoot you for saying the wrong thing. There is also a smidge of the co-conspiring Brothers Bulger, whom Carr castigated for robbing people blind—one using the force of the Winter Hill Gang, the other using the force of the government.

The problem is Cooper and company clearly bought into Whitey’s self-invented mythology to some extent, in order to portray him as a Cagney-esque figure. Yet, Whitey is the man who forced Stephen Rakes to sign over his liquor store, simply because he was stronger and he wanted it. That’s not Robin Hood. That’s the Sheriff of Nottingham. Whitey terrified South Boston in that manner, but it is completely absent from the film.

On the plus side, the Johnny Depp we have been missing for years finally decided to show up. He captures Whitey’s erratic intensity, venomous rage, and wiry power. Although small in stature, he is a physically intimidating presence. One look at him says bad news. That was how Whitey kept the town under his heel for so long.

Joel Edgerton is suitably awestruck and ultimately quite pitiable as the Connolly. However, while FBI special agent Robert Fitzpatrick was the hero of Joe Berlinger’s documentary WHITEY: the United States of America v. James J. Bulger, he is relegated to the background of Mass and played by the inconsequential Adam Scott, who looks far too young to be the agent that busted James Earl Ray (disclosure: my house published Fitzpatrick’s book, but we have never met).

Similarly, Benedict Cumberbatch is obviously proud of his Boston accent, but he does not radiate adequate villainy as William Bulger. Still, Jesse Plemons and Rory Cochrane are totally credible as Whitey’s trusted inner circle, but their most substantial scenes come in the first twenty minutes during the interrogation framing device.

Depp should be in contention for his work as Whitey, because it really is that good. Unfortunately, it comes in a rather shallow and inconsistent film. Far from being the final word on Bulger, Black Mass is a disappointment that only serves as an effective star vehicle for Depp when it opens today (9/18) at the AMC Empire in New York.

For No Good Reason: Steadman and Depp Drink Coffee & Chat

They are part of the Hunter S. Thompson mafia. That means they get together from time to time to sign limited collectibles, as good non-conformists are apt to do. There will be no fear or loathing when Johnny Depp pays a social call on counter-culture artist Ralph Steadman in Charlie Paul’s star-struck doc For No Good Reason (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Fate brought Steadman and Thompson together when the illustrator accompanied the gonzo writer on an assignment to cover the Kentucky Derby—and lived to tell about it. His Rolling Stone illustrations created the signature Thompson look. Naturally, his relationship with the pride of Aspen was rather stormy, but it led to a more stable friendship with Depp, whose pre-Transcendence box office clout was surely instrumental helping Reason get off the ground.

At least nobody can accuse Depp of being full of himself at any time during the film. Essentially, he politely sips whatever beverage is put in front of him, while occasionally mumbling “that was great, Ralph,” or some such fannish interjection.

There intriguing moments in Reason, particularly when Steadman whips up an original painting for the camera. Paul also cleverly incorporates elements of Steadman’s baroque grotesquerie into film, even taking liberties with the familiar blue Sony Classics logo (which must earn it a tiny footnote someplace in cinema history). Unfortunately, Paul largely focuses on Steadman’s more didactic work, under-representing his literary illustrations, while scrupulously ignoring the glaring disconnect between Steadman’s radical art and his idyllic country estate.

When Steadman tells his Thompson stories, it is still entertaining, even if his fans already know how they go, much like a 1960’s rock group performing their greatest hits. Content to play to the Gonza fanbase, Paul makes no effort to convert new admirers. As a result, Reason never transcends its narrow cult appeal. Harmless but shallow, For No Good Reason opens today (4/25) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.